Friday, July 17, 2015

BSNYC Friday Fun Quiz!

The weekend is finally upon us, which means you may be getting ready to ride your bike in a recreational fashion. Unless you're reading this on the massage table after today's Tour de France stage, you almost certainly suck, and your primary goal should be to get out there and have fun. Even so, before you head out on that enjoyable ride, make sure you take every possible measure to maximize aerodynamics, because you can make "aero gains at any speed:"

Now the idea of "aero gains at any speed" may sound a bit self-contradictory, but it's important to remember that by making some small changes to your setup and riding style you can finish your ride more quickly, which has the overall effect of reducing the amount of time you're out there enjoying yourself. This is the very essence of road riding. To that end, here are the main tips contained in the video:

1) Don't leave your jacket on

That's right, by leaving your jacket on while you ride you're rendering yourself less aerodynamic. So take it off.

What's that? You're wearing the jacket because it's cold and you feel more comfortable with it on?

Well, perhaps road riding isn't for you. Didn't you hear the guy? You can use the time you save by not wearing a jacket to stop and eat a sandwich!* Now who doesn't love sandwiches?!?

2) Don't ride a "loosely-cabled" bikes

Apparently this is a thing. You'd think if your bike's cables were too loose you wouldn't be able to shift, but apparently not. Specialized is now selling a $75 cable tension meter so you can check yours before every ride.

3) Don't use a saddle pack

Why carry essential tools when you can shave essential seconds off your recreational bike ride? Plus, you can use the time you save to eat that sandwich while waiting for your spouse or life partner to come pick you up.

4) Don't use lights

Aerodynamics trump visibility always. Sure, you might get sideswiped by a driver, but the ambulance ride is yet another perfect opportunity to break out that sandwich.

5) Get a new helme(n)t

See the vapor flowing over the helme(n)t? That's the hot air of PURE SPEED!

6) Get new clothes

Tighter, more aerodynamic clothing reveals the curves of your flabby, dimpled body. This is performance-enhancing, because everybody knows that dimples are aero.

Now get out there and ride, you uncomfortable sausage!

*It is highly inadvisable to both wear a jacket while cycling and stop for a sandwich when you're hungry, as nourishment and thermal comfort are conducive to cycling enjoyment.

But first, I'm pleased to present you with a quiz. As always, study the item, think, and click on your answer. If you're right then good, and if you're wrong you'll see cows.

127 comments:

41. For many if not most people, surrogate activities are less satisfying than the pursuit of real goals (that is, goals that people would want to attain even if their need for the power process were already fulfilled). One indication of this is the fact that, in many or most cases, people who are deeply involved in surrogate activities are never satisfied, never at rest. Thus the money-maker constantly strives for more and more wealth. The scientist no sooner solves one problem than he moves on to the next. The long-distance runner drives himself to run always farther and faster. Many people who pursue surrogate activities will say that they get far more fulfillment from these activities than they do from the “mundane” business of satisfying their biological needs, but that is because in our society the effort needed to satisfy the biological needs has been reduced to triviality. More importantly, in our society people do not satisfy their biological needs AUTONOMOUSLY but by functioning as parts of an immense social machine. In contrast, people generally have a great deal of autonomy in pursuing their surrogate activities.

hey... 4) Don't use lights... when i got side swiped last month, i woke up in the ambulance hungry, but didn't have my delicious sandwich because it was in my front bag.

...i didn't eat until early next morning when they told me to get the F out of the hospital... when i got up to leave, i promptly almost passed out... apparently from hunger... they gave me a sandwich, but it had no bananas or peanut butter... so i just ate a choco bar and left.

I had a dog come out after me last week; some little yippie thing. The house was on a pretty large piece of corner property and I was going around the corner. Of course the owner is sitting on the porch and sees this all go down. Starts yelling at me, "Don't squirt my dog, it did nothing" Yeah, except come within 18" of my bike. Meanwhile I probably saved the stupid thing by keeping it from running under my wheels.

She'll be the perfect suburban helicopter parent some day, already pointing fingers away from the problem...

Finally, the sport of cycling merges with the sport of dog beating. Amazed it took this long. So I was eating a sandwich wrapped in Reynolds yesterday when it suffered a CATASTROPHIC failure and leaked out juice. Fucking hipster wrap. This is due to simple metal fatigue and I can tell you, the sandwich tasted buzzy.I'm going back to my STEEL lugged lunchbox, thank you very much. Plus, the iron in the lunchbox adds precious iron to my sandwich, giving me a heart rate of 161 bpm.

Also, my scientific explanation for Froome's heart rate is simple, the monitor picked up the heart rate of the gerbil up his ass dosed with "la bomba". which is still 100% UCI legal. So suck it.

Roadie riding is sucky and boring and it detracts from time that could be better spent masturbating (which is apparently the second most popular off-bike activity among roadie riders, the first being talking about roadie riding - which is also, in fact, a form of masturbation), so I can understand why roadies would want to minimize their riding time by ending their their rides sooner.

Nice work Snob! You totally got me with the $75 cable tension meter! I clicked through wondering how in the world that tool could possibly be justified, but never for a second did I question that the bike industry would try to sell such an item.

haven't had PB in days now. i did take the little end of the rye i made earlier in the week and the little end of the whole wheat i made last eve and had a little grey poop with turkey, cheese & matoe. just don't see peanut butter on a Frieda day

i need that tension-o-meter. last time i redid mine, the housing for the rear brake was too high tension so it pulls away from the frame a bit and rubs against my thigh. i find that very sensual and a little bit distracting. at other times of course it is rather soothing.

Lol! Wow. That's funny. Thank you for that, for sharing the good words 'rock a doodle doo.' Spread the joy! How very odd to receive a backhanded compliment like that from the spineless sort of troll who kicks someone when they're down. Since we're friends now, please do tell me, is it physically painful to be that udderly, morally bankrupt?

Do you know what I fucking HATE!! I fucking hate stupid fucking people with stupid fucking squeaky chains! Fuck! "Have you ever heard of fucking OIL!", I yell at them. "It's that fucking black goo that they pump out of the ground, so you can put it on your fucking chain!" Do you know what else I fucking hate! I hate seeing videos of fucking dogs on fucking surfboards! Fuck!! "What the Fuck is this?!!", I screamed at my tv the other day. "Why don't you fucking tie the fucking dog to a hang glider and hurl it off a cliff?" Fuck!! I'm so angry my nose is starting to bleed.

The concept of "aero gains at any speed" is just stupid. As (I think) Rollie Fingers pointed out they last time this general topic came up, air resistance increases with the square of the speed. Air resistance at fred cruising speed (12-15 mph) is a minimal factor (regardless of what you are wearing, what you are riding, or what accessories you have attached to your bike) compared to the importance of minimizing air resistance at, for instance, pro time trial speed (~25-35 mph).

Freddy - not sure it was me... not sure it was I... no wait me... aw shit! not sure whom I were me it was, who said that, but it sounds like a pretty good description of reality. Which means, HELLO, the best way to reduce air drag is to reduce speed! As speed approaches 0, so does air drag! Bottom line: AERO GAINS AT ANY SPEED, just by going slower. If you cut your speed in half, say from 18mph to 9mph, you are improving your aerodynamics by a FACTOR OF FOUR, people!

Air resistance is pretty significant at fred "woo hoo hoo!" speed, but it's still not a big deal because fred "woo hoo hoo!" speed is only attained going down hill and is never sustained for very long.

I took spokey's advice & went for a ride before it got hot (unsuccessful...90 by the time I was home. I stopped to look at a hawk for a while. He was screeching loudly, so I videotaped him. He got pretty pissed off with me

I had a driver's ed instructor -- in (Upstate) NY, mind you, that abhorred the word "accident" in reference to auto collisions. He taught and repeatedly emphasized that the frequency of collisions that were true accidents (and not due to some aspect of negligence, distraction, or other identifiable behavior of one or more parties involved) were exceedingly rare. Bad brakes? Not an accident! Icy road? Not an accident!

This has stuck with me all these years, and at least 100 people were in that lecture (and he'd taught driver's ed forever). Your guess is as good as mine how many other boneheaded 16 years olds actually got the message.

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!